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Personally I prefer and have most experience in residential. I know commercial work usually pays more, but I don't know what it is, I just love residential. Especially the million dollar homes, some of these houses are unbelievable! I went on a call the other day on an 11k sq. ft. home! This thing had a friggin gym in the basement! It was an honor to be involved in the construction and development of this home.

commercial and industrial. No one looking over ya, no collecting. u most times left to do the job alone so u not like under pressure to get it done fast. u can get it done right. although there benefit and downsides to everything. i love doing commecial and industrial. dont need to take my boots off

Never done anything other than commercial - I agree with reftech though - don't think I'd want customers looking over my shoulder all day. Pretty one sided of course as I have never been on the residential side of the fence.

Res'd

I have done both over the years, but I perfer residential because I don't like climbing ladders to rooftop package unit, or going into buildings with 20 year old that is to cold and 41 year old who is to hot. I guess if I had to do refrigeration on walk-in coolers or freezers that would be ok.
I guess that I am just better at residential equipment that is why I have stayed in this field for so long.Oh, yea I can sell equipment pretty good too, I guess that is another reason for residential side, more comm...$$$$

True custom new construction can be interesting and challenging. Watching the home finish out can be quite interesting. I haven't seen too many other $10,000.00 signed German made sterling silver sinks in the butlers pantry anywhere else.

Tract home new construction sucks. Nuff said there.

Residential retrofit can be good and bad. Hot attics and cramped crawlspaces are on the bad side.

Commercial is the same way.

Big commercial jobs with pushy GC's can both suck and be dangerous. Safety only when it is convenient for them. Blueprints are often fit for paper in the stinky blue water. Lots of dust and noise. Rock wool and spray on fireproofing suck the big one. Drilling up into concrete to set anchors is a real close second.

Equipment lifts can be a lot of fun- or a disaster.

Commercial strip malls are no different than tract resi work. Slam bam thank you mam. Are you done yet?

I prefer custom work- resi or commercial.

Any of them are work and pay the bills, though.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money -- that is all. When you pay too little, you may lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot -- it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better."

I did residential for 12 years, and have been in commercial for 2. I still do resi on the side, but it's on my terms, if the customer gets pissy, (for any reason) I walk out. I would prefer not to go back to resi on a full time basis. Attics and crawl spaces are not fun in the summer, rooftops are hot but not as bad as crawling through an insulation filled attic that is only 15" tall at the peak!!
In commercial, I only have to deal with store managers, and most of our customers prefer that we tell the store manager as little as possible, so when the manager asks "What did you find?" My response is "well the unit is down and I have to order parts, as soon as they come in, I'll be back."
As others have said, you don't have those customers standing over your back asking questions to which they would not understand the answer anyway. You really don't have anyone micro-managing you, the dispatchers are the only people I have communication with on a daily basis, occasionally my boss will call me, but our techs are usually left alone to do there thing. If they have a question, we all help each other. No one is looked down upon if they don't know something. Matter 'o' fact we would prefer they call someone, than smash their head against the unit for an hour.

[Edited by trixter on 09-06-2006 at 10:29 AM]

After finding out our second born was also a boy, my wife asked "why are you sooooooo happy" to which I replied; "2 of those things are easier to keep up with than 20,000!"

Agree with all the comm guys here. To me it's just more fulfilling to get an old machine humming again. Not try to sell a unit every call. Mall roofs suck, big box roofs suck.
Most of our stuff is in mechanical rooms with plenty of access though.